"Photo by Michael McCarthy via Flickr" CC BY-ND 2.0
In 1931, many of the over-one thousand grand mansions and estates that have long defined Natchez, Mississippi were in a markedly less grand state than they are today. The economic challenges the Southern city and even its wealthiest landowners faced in the wake of the Civil War, and now in the heart of the Great Depression, left little funding for maintaining these architectural masterpieces.
That year, the Natchez Garden Club invited fellow garden clubs from all around the South for a series of garden tours, teas, and luncheons on the grounds of many of these properties. When the guests started asking to see the inside of the historic homes, Marsha Colson’s great grandmother—who was living at Lansdowne Plantation—is quoted as saying: “Not on my life, they will not see the inside of my house.”
“She would have been embarrassed at the state it was in,” said Colson, who currently serves as the president of the Pilgrimage Garden Club. But when the weather turned sour the following day, the well-documented hospitality of Natchez overpowered such self-consciousness, and the garden club guests were invited into the historic homes of Natchez. “It was an absolute success,” she said. “The ladies loved it.” In the oral histories collected from this event, one Natchez Garden Club member recalled a Virginia woman who articulated what made Natchez so compelling at the time: “We have beautiful homes like this all over Virginia, but you have to drive miles and miles to get from one to the other.”
The next year, the Garden Club hosted the very first Natchez Pilgrimage tour of homes. And the rest, as they say, is history. In the years to come, Natchez would build a thriving tourism industry upon its reputation as the city with the most millionaires per capita.
The Natchez Pilgrimage, celebrating its ninetieth anniversary this year, rejuvenated the city as a tourism town recognized globally for its hospitality and charm. Bolstered economically, the city’s antebellum homes were tended to as needed, renovated with historical preservation in mind and furnished with fine period-appropriate antiques. Generations of Natchezians grew up frolicking in the botanical gardens ornamenting these mansions, playing hide and seek under the grand Greek columns, and taking part in the various rituals and rites of passage that have come to be associated with Pilgrimage.
The world that Pilgrimage has fostered is a romantic one—a Southern utopia of impossible wealth and gentility set against the backdrop of Natchez’s beautiful natural environment and one of the world’s greatest rivers. Over the last several decades, though, organizers have come to recognize the violent erasure that utopia has perpetuated, and have made pointed efforts to re-evaluate the story that Pilgrimage—and Natchez as a whole—tells.
“It’s a hard story to tell for many people living here, especially for those of us who live in the houses, where our ancestors lived and had enslaved people taking care of the house,” said Colson. “But we’re working very hard in Natchez to own up to these aspects of our past.”
“Pilgrimage, for many many years, told the story of the wealthy white plantation owners, and it ended when the Civil War began, with a Confederate farewell ball,” said Colson. “Many of us have been uncomfortable with that for quite a while, but with all that’s happened in this country in recent years, so many things that were part of our everyday lives—especially in the South—we had to start questioning.”
In 2021, the decision was made to do away with Pilgrimage’s hallmark event, the Natchez Tableaux—which has faced especial criticism over the last several years because of its glorification of the Confederacy, and failure to adequately incorporate the city’s multi-faceted African American history into its programming. Instead, organizers have shifted their focus to telling the whole story of Natchez, even the ugly parts.
“It’s a hard story to tell for many people living here, especially for those of us who live in the houses, where our ancestors lived and had enslaved people taking care of the house,” said Colson. “But we’re working very hard in Natchez to own up to these aspects of our past.”
This year’s Pilgrimage will not only emphasize the historical significance of enslaved people in Natchez’s history, and the atrocities they faced—but the experience will also offer a more comprehensive history on Natchez as a whole. Visitors will learn about the region in a context that goes beyond the Antebellum era to include the history of the area’s Indigenous peoples, as well as the many achievements and contributions of Black men and women before, during, and after the Civil War.
Ninety years later, Natchez’s remarkable collection of antebellum homes remain at the heart of Pilgrimage—recognized for each one’s history, rare expressions of architecture, and wondrous craftsmanship. But now, visitors crossing over the homes’ thresholds will be reminded, often at the very beginning of their tour, that “This house was built on the backs of enslaved people.”
This year’s Spring Pilgrimage takes place from March 12–April 12. Details can be found at natchezpilgrimage.com.
